Umpbump came about when two colleagues (and some of their friends) decided to post their baseball commentary on the web. Nothing more, nothing less; pure unadulterated baseball opinions from six (sometimes more) fans of the game.

To contact us, drop as a line here get [at] umpbump [dot] com. If we fail to respond, please blame: a) Our junk mail filter; b) My boss, who came over just now, when I got your email; c) the fact that we just don’t know what you want (we just work here); or d) yea, we just work here.

We try to make this here site look as professional as possible but don’t quote us (extensively); these are just our humble opinions.

Leal’s first contact with the sport of baseball came while attending a Mets – Cardinals game in 1993 at Shea Stadium. His second contact came a few weeks later when he walked on the field in the Metrodome. He still has the rug burns to prove it (not to mention his loathing of the Twinkies).

He became a die-hard White Sox fan by virtue of a passed-on fitted cap; unfortunately for the team though, they hold a 3-6 record when he attends their games (4-1 in exhibition games, biaaatch).

That’s him in his Mom’s kitchen, imagining he’s Jeff Smith from The Frugal Gourmet.

Coley Ward lives in Tucson, AZ, and covers nightlife for the Arizona Daily Star. He is a native of Wallingford, Penn., and a lifelong Phillies fan. Traditionally, Ward’s fantasy baseball teams finish towards the bottom of the standings. But this year his team finished the regular season in third place — that’s progress!

Sarah Green is an editor at HarvardBusiness.org, a website of the Harvard Business Review. She also writes a column for the sports section of the Boston Metro, which she shamelessly insists on publicizing here on UmpBump.

Sarah is a proud Masshole and a lifelong citizen of Red Sox Nation. She attended her first game at Fenway in 1982 as a wee babe. Now she’s just a babe.

Ed.’s note: Sarah is the only umpbump-er with her own Wikipedia entry. That is classy.After 4 years and numerous edits they deleted Sarah’s page!! Why, Wikipedia, why???

Nick Kapur knows Japanese and loves baseball. This may be why he also loves Japanese baseball. Traditionally, his fantasy baseball teams finish at the top of the standings but get blown out in the playoffs. Stupid playoffs.

Nick’s biggest baseball-related exploits came in his college years, when he was a radio broadcaster for the Stanford Cardinal baseball team that went to four consecutive College World Series.

Nick grew up in LA, but now splits his time between Japan and Boston. Either way, he dislikes the Yankees.

Paul is a Japanese immigrant who boarded a Northwest Airlines flight in 1986 and has never looked back. Except when he goes back to visit. He was a firsthand eye-witness of a videotape of Game 7 of the 1986 World Series the day after it happened and thus has the image of Jesse Orosco embracing Gary Carter ever so gently forever imprinted into his psyche. He has been a Mets fan ever since.

Our resident fantasy sports insider. In fact, he is so far inside, that he hardly ever comes out. Geffen, now a business school grad student, is a former production assistant for ESPN’s Cold Pizza. He had a fleeting brush with fame in 2004, when he starred in several CP segments. You may remember him from such segments as, “Intern Zvee goes to fantasy camp,” “Intern Zvee interviews Victoria’s Secret models,” or “Intern Zvee gets a make-over.”

Joe is the resident Brit writer on the UmpBump staff and also writes at www.fullcountpitch.com. His nationality makes him entirely defenseless against accusations that he knows nothing having never played the game. He will, however, endeavor to win over all you readers lucky enough to grow up immersed in the game. He also feels it is important to take this opportunity to apologize for being a Red Sox fan and attempt justify this decision by pointing out that the first baseball game he ever saw was Red Sox v Indians in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS.

Featured posts

Last week, we asked you to vote for who you would like to see enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame. The verdict? If it were up to UmpBump readers, nobody would make it in. The leading vote getter (so far) is Jeff Bagwell, who has 60% support. Of course, in the real voting, players need […]

In what has become an annual tradition, we here at UmpBump cast our ballots for the Hall of Fame on the eve of the announcements of the voting for the real Hall of Fame. Voters can vote for anyone ever who has been retired from baseball for at least five years and is not already […]

Now that we’ve looked at every position on the diamond, as well as relief pitchers, we are nearing the end of our “Crowdsourcing the Greats” series. But before we finish, let’s turn one more time to the internet hoi polloi for answers on who the greatest baseball manager of all time was. As usual, we […]